Portland Ghostbusters II
by The Smash Artist
Summary: The new team returns! But a new kind of threat looms. Rated T for language and scary images. Special thanks to Pat D for assistance with Ch2.
1. PGB 2

Ch. 1

Pitch darkness enveloped the air like a mist. The acrid smell of tissue decay signaled dead bodies everywhere. Corpses littered the dingy hallway floor. The living figure cautiously darted around the lifeless corpses and held out a hand to feel a door in front of him. It opened with a musty old creak, as he unholstered his weapon and prepared to use it. The room, a dark musty apartment, held the same aura, as did the hallway. A dim light off in the far corner struggled terribly to hold off the darkness. Several easy chairs sat at post, occupied by more lifeless corpses. Their pale, sometimes broken skin marked sharp contrast of the tidy naval blue and gold of their uniforms.

"Hey, Scott, where are you?" The voice belonged to his friend and partner-in-slime Phil. Both men had been keeping their Ghostbusters franchise in pretty good stead, especially since the city of Portland had paid them quite handsomely for destroying the ice demon Wendigo a couple months earlier.

"I'm in here." A few moments later the room's door opened again and there was Phil. Scott turned to him, but had failed to see the corpse slither up from the nearby easy chair and stalk toward him. He turned around just in time to see the thing lunge on him. With primal savagery the beast ate through his neck, crimson spraying everywhere, and he fell lifeless to the floor.

"Damn it, man! That's the fourth time you've gotten me killed today!"

The television screen flashed the "game over" sign.

"I was getting really far too. Couldn't this have waited?" Scott fumed as he powered off the small black video game system.

"We need to eat dinner sooner or later. And we've still got to check out the talking wall in that Chinese lady's basement."

"Yeah, _I guess_ you're right."

Scott followed his buddy from the television room out into the main second floor hallway of the firehouse that served as their headquarters. The walked down the tidy, well-furnished hallway toward the tall brass fire pole that led to the building's vehicle bay.

Truth be told, the generous stipend from the city was keeping them afloat. After the destruction of Wendigo, the frequency of paranormal activity around the state had all but ceased. There wasn't much work for paranormal exterminators. Phil had taken a part time job as a supervisor at his parents' custodial business. Most of the cases lately had been little more than investigative work, and most were remedied simply by talking the misguided entity into crossing over to the next world. To surprise of his colleague, Phil had demonstrated that little bit of competence in this area. At least the laser containment unit in the basement was in no danger of collapse from overcrowding.

"How about Italian tonight?" asked Phil as he followed Scott down the pole into the polished brick vehicle bay.

"DiNicola's on Powell is a good place." Scott mumbled as he sauntered across the magnificent room to the plain oak desk and group of metal filing cabinets that served as their front office. He sank down into the black vinyl office chair and checked the ridiculously complicated office telephone for messages. There were none, save for the latest offer from newspaper telemarketers that had been desperate to get a subscription from the firehouse.

Deciding it unnecessary to bring the company truck, Scott and Phil bypassed Ecto-A, leaving the white behemoth to silently stand guard over the building while they were gone. They instead wandered out the smaller person-sized door next to the two gigantic red iron vehicle doors, out to Scott's smaller gray Escort. For the job they had brought only a few tools: a pair of PKE meters, to measure the presence and power of the entity; a Geiger counter, to determine the entity's molecular stability; a 35 mm camera with zoom lens; a Bacharach Sniffer, to detect changes in temperature and barometric pressure; a tan leather briefcase containing a couple spirit catalogs, a black leather-bound Holy Bible, a small metal scoop and plastic container, stationery items and a notepad; and a lone proton pack with ghost trap, just in case things got out of hand. But this was a talking wall. What harm could it do other than shouting phrases unprintable in a family newspaper? And from the tone of the call, their client, Mrs. Cindy Leung, seemed more curious than terrified of this phenomenon in her basement.

Neither man had chosen to wear the company uniform, partially to avoid odd stares at the restaurant. They finished their meal in plenty of time to make the evening appointment. The Escort pulled up to the curb in the prim neighborhood nestled in the hills of Southwest Portland. The Tudor-style homes sat even four-on-a-city-block, behind large emerald green lawns and rows of pretty sweet-smelling flowers. This place looked like Elm Street and Freddy had taken an extended vacation. The endless pool of pale blue sky and the unusually warm spring temperature had brought kids and dogs outside to play in the sun's golden glow, adding to the serene early-evening environment.

Scott and Phil checked addresses then walked up the gray cement path to the front door. The golden sunlight illuminated the teal siding of the two-story ranch-style home as well as the cream-colored windows and awnings. The house was rectangular and perfectly symmetrical. The front yard was a cornucopia of rosebushes, peonies, and rhododendrons. The pastel hues of their flowers complemented the teal siding of the house. Scott stepped up on the front porch and rang the doorbell. A few seconds later, a shorter Asian woman opened the white front door. Twin smooth drapes of raven hair hung down around her earlobes and her surprisingly wide eyes showed wrinkles of stress and experience. She was dressed in blue jeans and an unbuttoned pale green collared shirt that exposed a solid black tee shirt underneath. He quickly deduced that she was either a mother or a busy professional of some sort.

"Good evening, ma'am. I'm Mr. Scott Jackson and this is Mr. Phil Wickmore. We're with Ghostbusters. You had called us yesterday about examining the wall in your basement."

Scott had chosen to wear a clay-colored t-shirt overlaid with a black leather vest. His colleague had worn a tan colored shirt that resembled the upper portion of their regular uniforms. Both men had company logo stickers on the right sleeves of their shirts, adding an air of professionalism despite the plain clothes. The woman looked them over, and after noticing the logo, invited them inside. They exchanged formalities, and the two investigators ran the lady through a list of questions to diagnose her general mental health and propensity toward possession. After she had checked out psychologically, they asked her to lead them downstairs to the wall in the basement.

"Now, you say this wall was speaking to you in perfect English a couple days ago, and now it's gibberish, is that right?" asked Phil.

"Yes, that's correct. The wall had started talking to me about a week ago. I was scared at first, even ran up the stairs and initially refused to go back into the basement. But my washer and dryer were down there, and I needed to do laundry. I finally mustered the courage and went down there. Attempting to sneak through unnoticed, I was quite surprised when it started discussing popular spring flowers that thrive well in this region. Gardening is a hobby of mine. After that morning the wall became quite a delight to talk to. It actually has a very gentle voice. We talked on all sorts of subjects. My husband is on an extended business trip overseas, and my two cats Pihpo and Sam can't answer back when I talk to them. It was nice – if a little unnerving…"

The party moved down the slender basement hallway, across the tidy blue carpet, toward the brick wall near the darker rear corner of the bright basement.

"But yesterday, I mentioned that my son was playing professional baseball, and the wall launched into a tirade. It didn't sound angry, but desperate. The wall kept saying, 'ah-froh-roh-tu-rih-fel', and different warning phrases with that word interspersed. I could sense the frustration in its voice at my lack of understanding."

"Did you feel at any time like the wall was going to hurt you?" asked Phil.

"No. I sensed it _didn't_ want harm to come to me. Which I think was part of the reason it was so desperate. Since then I've tried to talk to it about some of the old topics, but I either get that strange word or silence."

"Why didn't you call us before?" Asked Scott, face alive with quizzical expression.

"It didn't really bother me before. Last night I had a dream that my son was drastically injured in a spring training game. He's a pitcher in the minor league system of the Arizona Diamondbacks. I was there watching one of his games, and as he completed his pitch delivery the batter – who had no face – hit the ball right back at him. The baseball slammed off his left temple and killed him instantly. I remembered crying in my dream, right before I woke up. Then, this afternoon I came downstairs here to get a light bulb, and heard soft sobbing. Small beads of clear liquid trickled down the walls from three-quarters of the way up. The wall was crying like it had been there in my dream. After a day of silence, here it was, sobbing and repeating that strange word!"

Scott and Phil exchanged surprised glances as the trio walked toward the thin plywood doorway and into the dirtier darker room with the strange wall. The dull tomato wall sat silently like a monolith, with white tar stained a couple shades darker over years of use. It resembled very much a fireplace wall without the fireplace. The foul and strange odor of fried hair and compost immediately stunned the three people. Both men planted their equipment on a small dusty wooden sewing table near the door and proceeded with their investigation. Scott powered a PKE meter while Phil put on the shoulder strap of the Bacharach Sniffer. He traced the cracks in the wall with the slender needle of the odd-looking device, manipulating its movement with the slender hose, and studying the results on the machine's rectangular body. Both devices registered what amounted to low-grade psychic turbulence. The voice spoke again. It desperately pleaded with all three people:

"Ah-fro-roh-tu-rih-fel! Ah-fro-roh-tu-rih-fel! Help the third man! Palgun-ch'orokssaek!"

Phil and Scott examined the thing with their eyes, considering the gentle yet room-shaking power of this otherwise ordinary wall. After a few minutes deep in thought, Phil asked of Mrs. Leung, "Are you sure it's a word? It sounds like a phrase or a name."

"Well, it does sound vaguely like an abbreviated form of a Hokkien Chinese phrase," she replied. "But the phrase makes no sense. It sounds like 'curb me your dog fish telephone'".

"A random, garbled phrase," said Scott. "Yet it sounds too desperate for that. Anyway, the last part of that phrase sounded like the Korean word for Emerald, as in the color. Let's see what Spates Catalog has to say about it." He went over to the briefcase on the table, retrieved the catalog, and began to thumb through it. His fingers danced over the edges of each page until he found a section of interest. Reading the entire section in just a few minutes, he sprang up with information:

"Spates stated that talking walls or floors or other such edifices act as a kind of harbinger, trying to uncover a mystery of the past – such as an unsolved murder – or warn about danger in the near future – apocalyptic foreteller. In such cases there is likely a room behind the wall in which a corpse or a trinket of value or a long lost note has been locked away."

"Actually, when we first moved in to this place a decade ago, the wall had only extended to the entryway of this room. We had knocked part of a wall down and put in the doorway. At the time there were no foul smells," explained Mrs. Leung. "We knocked out some bricks but stopped advancing as soon as we hit insulation. There was nothing in the room except for old rotting fire logs and a little mold. We replaced the bricks and the wall had been normal up until all this started."

The wall caught Phil's attention when it started oozing out a dark pink viscous substance, accompanied by more of the sobbing sounds. He gestured to his teammate. "Ectoplasm," Scott and Phil said in unison. Concern flashed across the aged features of the homeowner's face. Scott grabbed the scoop and container from the briefcase and jabbed them into the gut of his colleague.

"Why do I have to do it?" protested Phil.

"Because, as a janitor, you are more used to getting your hands in filthy substances than I am. You'll probably get a better sample," retorted Scott, before turning around to speak again to the lady in the room. Phil just sighed and went to get a slime sample. He cringed at the pungent smell of hair and compost. Just like the odor hanging in the room, only about ten times as potent.

"Okay so there isn't likely another hidden room. That means that the spirit within the wall is trying to warn you about something happening very soon. Lemme' write this down." Scott returned again to the briefcase and fetched the notepad and pen, and began jotting all he had remembered. "Do you want us to attempt to exterminate the voice? In a haunting like this, usually the voice is there just to deliver a message. And yours seems to have done just that."

"I don't know," said Mrs. Leung. "I almost think of it as a friend. But, if it won't carry on normal conversation anymore…"

"Well, how about we try to talk to it first? I'm a little tuned-in psychically," suggested the larger Ghostbuster as he filled the clear plastic container with the pink ooze. He turned back to face the wall.

"Hello. I'm Phil. Where are you from… originally?"

The wall was dead silent.

"Oh-kay. Um, what is ah-fro-roh-tu-ri-fel?"

The same voice before that had seemed so gentle now threatened to dislodge the bricks from the wall as it responded:

"AH-FRO-ROH-TU-RI-FEL? Did get? Help the third man?

As Phil backed away from the aroused phenomenon, Scott spoke up. "Yes! We've got it!"

The wall breathed a long sigh of relief before going dead silent. The scent of hair and compost suddenly dissipated, and all traces of slime – including the sample – vanished. Phil took another reading with his Bacharach Sniffer, as did Scott with is PKE meter. Both devices now registered nothing out of the ordinary. The wall appeared again to be just an ordinary edifice.

"It's gone, isn't it?" asked Mrs. Leung, definitely dumbfounded.

"Yeah," replied Phil, equally dumbfounded. "Psychic entities don't normally disappear just like that, but… yeah."

"So what do I owe you guys?"

The Ghostbusters only requested the standard per-hour service call fee, which amounted to twenty dollars. As Mrs. Leung was showing them out, Scott left behind one of his special business cards. "Now, if anything strange happens again, call the number on this card. It will bypass the normal answering system and get you right to myself. You won't be charged for any more unless we need to bring the extermination equipment. Thanks a lot and have a pleasant evening!"

"Thank you," said Mrs. Leung, as she disappeared behind the gently closing white wooden door. The evening sun was now barely a sliver over the mountains in the distance, the gentle golden glow slowly dissolving into the ocean of midnight blue. The two men stashed their gear in the trunk of the Escort and then headed back toward the firehouse.

"That was strange," commented Phil. "She was nice, but seemed entirely too comfortable with the idea of a talking wall in her basement. And not only that, but all of our investigations up to this point have ended with us capturing some sort of vicious slimy transparent motherfucker."

"Yeah, it was really anticlimactic," replied Scott. "Truth be told, I'm kinda glad we didn't have to get into it with any ghosts. I've got three slimy uniforms at the dry cleaners, and I still have to figure out what I'm going to tell them they removed."

"The ghosts slime you so much because they want your body, and they're not all female spirits either," Phil joked. "So how does it feel to be a ghost's gay wet dream?"

"I'd rather be a ghost's wet dream than its mental doormat. At least they fail in their purpose due to lack of proper equipment. They still have the mental aptitude to possess you, Miss Cleo!" Retorted Scott. "Tell you what; I think I'll be up half the night trying to decipher what that wall meant, as well as our client's dream. Ah-fro-roh-tu-ri-fel… the third man… hmmm…"

"Check that out!" commented Phil, pointing to the Southwestern sky. Scott tried to alternate between watching the road and glancing at the sky. Hovering right where the last slivers of sunlight met the sea of midnight, a triangle of tiny pulsating lights. The triangle suddenly darted to the southeastern sky before hovering for a few seconds, flashing a bright emerald green and vanishing completely from the dark sky. "I think that was a flying saucer!"

"Something tells me we're gonna' get really busy really soon," replied Scott.


	2. Chapter 2

Ch. 2

"Stop putting it off; you're as bad as me." Phil was sitting on the couch in the sparsely decorated television room of their two-floor firehouse attempting to get through to his colleague sitting adjacent on the brown woven cotton sofa. Scott was blankly staring at the television's changing channels as the remote sat limply on his leg. "You know we need another team member. You need to start scheduling interviews. I did my part and put out advertisements. Now it is up to you to finish responding to the dozen calls we've received in the past couple weeks."

"I have already interviewed five people, and the reason I sit here surfing channels is that I don't want to deal with it again. All we've had come through the doors are nut jobs and jokers," says Scott apathetically.

"How do you know the other candidates won't be serious," asks Phil. "Five people I could understand, but there is probably going to be someone in twelve candidates very serious about joining us."

"And it will take both of us several months to become accustomed to this new person who will be working with us, eating with us, and sleeping in the same building as us," replied Scott. "I'd really rather get someone you or I know well."

"But you have no problems speaking to our clients," retorts Phil.

"I don't have to be around them twenty-four-seven. It is easy to put on a professional façade for a few hours at a time. Constantly is another story," states Scott with emphasis.

"Well, at least listen to the messages left by the candidates. There might be someone who one of us knows that wants to work with us."

Scott just groans and continues his mindless channel surfing. Still he wears a look of someone deep in thought. Phil gets up from the sofa and heads over to the kitchen to get a snack. He's digging in the freezer for a couple of garden burgers when he hears from the television room, "I KNOW WHO WE SHOULD GET!"

…

Patrick finished the memo and sent it out to the project head for approval. He hated paperwork, but as low-man-on-the-totem-pole most of it fell on him. With a shrug, he pulled up the current design iteration he was supposed to review. He had been lucky to get this job so soon out of college, even if it was just a month-long contract.

It really did prove the saying "it's not what you know, but who you know." His dad had dropped word with a retired Navy friend who just happened to have a short-term opening. A bus ride out to Keyport and a quick meet with the team had gotten Patrick the job. Overall, it had worked out well, though he would have preferred a longer-term position. A month just wasn't long enough to get a really good design for something like this. Still, it should be enough money to buy a car. That would expand his availability and make getting another job easier. Plus he'd have some good references when this was over.

His attention jumped back to the design as an idea struck him. _If we change the fin angle by a degree and open the end a little, it should reduce cavitation enough to achieve required torque._ A few quick calculations showed that the motor's power input could be reduced about two percent, so he shot an email off to the team to double-check. It was unlikely they'd thank him though, they had less than a week to finalize the design before manufacturing started and this was just one more consideration before that could happen. He couldn't just let it lie though; once he started a job, Patrick had never been able to settle for less than his best, even if it meant more work.

He finished reviewing the current design and drew up his alterations before signing off for the day. As usual it was a long bus ride home, but he always kept a book handy, so it passed quickly.

…

Upon returning home, Patrick finds a surprising message waiting for him on his phone from his old friend, Scott. Patrick had known Scott for just a short time; through an anime club they both had attended. But he had no idea what Scott was doing for work, or why he would call.

"Hi Pat, Scott here. I don't know what you are doing for work, but there's this position open with my company. I had heard you say in the past that you want to come back to Portland someday. This would give you an opportunity, because this firm is based in the Rose City. It would also allow you to use your engineering skills and to do innovative work in a field that is still largely unexplored. Call me at 971-555-2536 and I'll tell you more. Later!"

…

"I hope that phone message you left wasn't too vague. You said your friend Patrick was supposed to call soon. We've still got to interview those campers who had the strange encounter up in a campground near Oregon City. They're waiting upstairs."

"Yeah. He's probably just finishing up his workday," replies Scott, as he and Phil ascend the staircase toward the television room on the second floor.

Inside the room, two younger men sit comfortably on the same brown couch that Scott had listlessly occupied not long ago. These guys look like outdoorsy types.

"Good afternoon. I'm Scott Jackson and this is Phil Wickmore, with Ghostbusters. You guys want some ice-water or coffee?"

"Hello. Coffee would be nice," says the first man. He wears khaki shorts, grass stains faded over repeat washings, and a white marathon t-shirt. "I'm Alex Sector."

"I'm his brother, Jonathan," chimes the other man. Scott studies him. He has on jeans with holes in the knees and a plain yellow striped t-shirt that looks straight out of the seventies.

"Pleased to meet both of you. Now, we received your short e-mail. You said something to the effect of an alien encounter in the woods? Before you begin, will you allow Phil to tape-record our conversation? We will use it only for our notes, and anything you tell us will be kept confidential."

"Yes, that's fine," begins Alex. "There were six of us camping out at the Beaver Creek campground near Oregon City. It was about two-thirty in the morning, a couple of people got up to go for a short hike and get some air. We hadn't had any alcohol and none of us do illegal drugs. Anyway, they were gone about fifteen or twenty minutes when the other four of us had decided to go to bed for the night. No more than five minutes after we had entered our tents, me and my brother saw a bright light above our tent, sorta' like a spotlight. We then heard our dog Sal barking like crazy at something, before hearing Sal whimper and go silent…"

"Hate to interrupt," states Phil. "But we'd like to hook you guys up to this device here. It measures psychokinetic, biological, and psychological responses from your mind. It doesn't hurt or anything. I'll just put these electrode caps on your guys' heads."

After a little reluctance, Alex and Jonathan agree and Alex continues the story.

"So the two guys that had gone hiking were on their way back when they saw a large metallic object hovering over our campsite. Something; a large creature, was standing outside one of the tents looking in!"

"Now we had two tents. We were in the large four-person tent with one other girl, and the other tent had our buddy's wife, Sheila, alone. He was one of the two people who had gone hiking," added Jonathan. Phil notices Jonathan's heart rate rising slightly on the monitor of the device as his brother continues the story.

"Anyway, she said she was terrified. So terrified that she was unable to move or scream. She just sat there staring at this thing. Time seemed to stop for all of us. It was as if Mother Nature said 'shhh.' Then the creature came over and hovered near our tent."

"So it hovered rather than walked?" inquires Phil.

"Yes. It was ground level, but it looked like something invisible was pushing it along. All three of us saw the shadow of this creature when it passed by our tent. It was six or seven feet tall, very slender, and had huge eyes that glowed red in the night. I'm not sure what they wanted, but they made believers out of us that night!"

"Okay, did Sheila tell you how the creature looked?" Asks Scott.

"Damn right she did!" exclaims Jonathan. "Her tent was lit very well, between our campfire and the strange spot light. Sheila told us it had leathery skin, like a reptile, except it was pockmarked, like bad acne. Its huge eyes glowed red and were at the top of its head. Its face seemed to be very furry, like it had a long beard that hid its mouth."

"Did this thing hurt any of you?"

"That's the funny part," says Alex. "All of us were unharmed and we didn't lose any time. Even Sal was okay. This whole thing must have lasted ten minutes. As soon as the spotlight - the space ship - left, the creature disappeared!"

"Did anyone else see it?"

"I don't know. We were the only campers in the immediate area, but the light had to get everyone else's attention, so I'd guess yeah," surmises Alex.

"Have any of you had after-effects of your encounter," asks Scott.

"Well, Sal occasionally gets spooked by things that aren't there. That dog runs and hides under my bed after something as random as staring at a wall. Sheila says that she's had recurring nightmares with several of these creatures taking her from her bedroom up to the light," says Jonathan.

"Anything else you guys want to add?" asks Phil.

"That pretty much covers it. Me and my brother want to show you the campsite where this all happened," insists Alex.

Phil stops the tape recorder and motions to Scott.

"Will you guys excuse us for a moment?" asks Scott. He and Phil go out to the main hallway and discuss the situation.

"What did you find on the Electropsychogram?" whispers Scott.

"Well, neither of them seems possessed. And according to the web crash course in EPG interpretation Spengler and Stantz hosted, their brain activity was normal, and Jonathan's pulse quickened in a logical place - when Alex described the creature. They seem to be telling the truth; at least they think they are," replies Phil, in a whisper. "Why don't we just go with Alex and send his brother home?"

Scott and Phil reenter the interview room. "Okay, we talked things over and we want you to show us the campsite, Alex. Jonathan, we won't need you to come along. We're taking the company truck and so will be on call when we go out there, and want as few non-personnel with us as possible if something should come up."

"Yes, that's fine. Alex and I took separate cars here," replies Jonathan. All four men exit the makeshift interview room out into the main hallway and down the stairs back to the building's vehicle bay. They exchange pleasantries with Jonathan and let him out before escorting Alex to Ecto-A. The familiar beeping of his cell phone interrupts small talk, as Scott is about to enter the ambulance. He answers to Pat's voice.

"Hey, it's Patrick. You left a message about a job opening?" he asks hopefully.

"Yeah. It's an – ahem - start-up company. We've been in business around three months now and even though there are peaks and valleys in demand for our services, you can earn enough to craft out a very comfortable living for yourself," continues Scott.

"Well, what is it that you do?" asks Pat.

"Well, um, we conduct professional paranormal investigations and eliminations," replies Scott, hoping not to scare off his applicant. "As a matter of fact we're on our way to an investigation right now."

"I remember seeing something on the news a couple months back with that freak snow storm... Ghostbusters or something? Stuff like that?"

"Yeah," replies the paranormalist. "We took down the cause of the storm, a huge monster called Wendigo. If you like action as well, you'll see plenty of it. We had to fight off zombies while beating Wendigo. And like I said, there would be plenty of opportunity to develop and test your own theories in the physics - well, metaphysics - and engineering fields." This prompts a few seconds of stunned silence from Scott's conversation partner.

"Wait, you're telling me that this stuff's real? I thought the 'global warming screwed with the weather and then El Nino hit' theory was more convincing," Pat questions.

"Well, we've got at least two witnesses that can attest to all of it being real. Surreal is more like it. I still can barely believe we made it out alive," Scott grins with nostalgia before continuing. "Would El Nino really cause Antarctic weather in a climate such as Portland's in May?"

"I didn't say I was convinced, just that it was more convincing," Pat continues. "What kind of hard science do you have to work with? They don't teach paranormal, so I'd need hard evidence to really be able to contribute anything."

"Many sub-fields mostly physics related," Scott replies. "Engineering, meta-physics, physics; also detection-type sciences: forensics, research, that sort of thing. And we may just have some hard evidence for you after tonight's investigation. Well, evidence that we could actually send electronically. If you came down to the office, I could show you a laser-protection grid full of hard evidence."

"Well, I'm interested, but I'm working all this week. I got a contract job that ends this week, so we're scrambling to finish on time. I should be more or less free after that."

Scott almost cannot believe what he hears. "Excellent. Well, how about we fly you out on Tuesday morning of next week?"

"If you have somewhere I can crash, I could drive down. It's only three hours and I'm planning to get a car with most of my paycheck. Seems like a waste to fly when it's an hour to the airport at either end," reasons Pat.

"We have another couple of beds in the sleeping quarters, because our office is an old firehouse. But booking you a flight is no problem."

"Flying just seems a waste for such a short trip. My family drives it on a semi-regular basis. When and where should I meet you?"

"Could you make the drive Tuesday morning?" requests Scott. "We've got a case on Monday."

"That's fine, around noon then?"

"Yeah, the address is Nineteen-Fifty-Two-Southeast Seventh Avenue, between Harrison and Lincoln Street, a block up from the Goodwill store."

"Okay, I'll see you there. Thanks for the offer," replies Pat.

"Have a good night!" says Scott cheerfully.

"You too. Bye."

Scott hangs up and grins quickly at Phil, driving Ecto-A toward the campground site of the alien encounter. "He's set to interview on Tuesday." Scott then glances back to Alex in the rear passenger seat. The guest quickly fixes his gaze out the window. He wears an expression as though caught listening into a secret conversation. Something in the back of Scott's mind momentarily unnerves him about their client's gaze, but the thought quickly passes.


	3. Chapter 3 Close Encounters

Ch. 3

Soon they reach the campground. A few miles to the southeast of Oregon City, they find the site nestled snuggly in between expansive farmland and the forested foothills of a small mountain. "Turn down this gravel road to get to where our campsite was," says Alex. The night lends a cooling breeze to earth still giving off heat from the daylight sun. Ecto-A's headlights reflect off the dried yellow grass of the hillsides and the smoky brown and dense green of the trees lining the narrow gravel road. The ambulance and its lights stick out from the blackness like a neon marker. Both Scott and Phil have just worn regular clothing. As usual a couple proton packs and a ghost trap are stored in their slots in the rear of the vehicle. After a little bit of driving on this winding road they come to a wider section in the gravel that appears to be a makeshift parking lot.

"Pull off to the side here, here is where we were camping," advises Alex. All three men exit the vehicle and pan their surroundings. The full moon glows white amid a theater of bright stars against the midnight blue of the sky. It provides barely enough light to make it appear as though the surrounding trees and bushes are bulbous shadows reaching out for them. Scott can hear crickets in the distance and the occasional screech or bark of nocturnal wildlife.

"I haven't seen any signs nearby that read 'Beaver Creek Campground'," remarks Phil. Scott nods in agreement.

"Look over there," says Alex. Through a bush they can see a dim campfire and bipedal figures moving and sitting. "You see, there are campers out here on a night like tonight."

"Well, then, we've got to be careful not to disturb them. Phil and I have to get some of our gear from the truck, and then you can show us the exact location," says Scott quietly.

After walking a few minutes along an earthen path, and moving between and past several large trees, Alex stops them. Scott and Phil begin scouring the area with meters and thermographs, searching for any sort of evidence. Eventually the two separate a little, and Scott continues with Alex. "Now it's right about here that you saw the creature hover along the ground?"

"Yes, that's correct," says Alex. "It gives me the creeps just being out here again."

Scott scans the ground and finds faint traces of radiation. "Yep, I found something…"

All of a sudden, a bright light appears just behind him over the trees. Its reddish-purple glow further perverts the appearance of the thick trees. Scott finds himself unable to move or speak as the light positions over the top of him and right into his paralyzed gaze. The source of the light is as large in diameter as a carousel, and seems to absorb the blackness of the night. He cannot tell the exact shape of the craft except for its underside; the lights illuminate the bottom of the craft to reveal a round mirror-like surface. The light seems to be escaping as though it were a neon mist, but almost painfully bright. It moves ominously nearer to his paralyzed frame.

He then feels two clammy hands with long fingers take hold of his head, and rotate it to the left. Scott struggles to move, to run, but cannot make his muscles work. He finds himself staring face to face with a being not of this world. Its huge cranium gives way to a slender face with only two dots for a nose, and a slit for a mouth, yet the face possesses a clearly-defined jaw line. The eyes are the most terrifying. The bulbous lenses occupy the whole eyeball, and they seem to wrap halfway around its head. The creature applies the palm of its left hand to the paralyzed, terrified investigator's forehead. Everything fades to white.

As Scott's eyes open, he can feel a tremendous migrainic pain starting at his forehead and extending back into the very center of his head, threatening to slice his brain to shreds if he thinks too much. He can see himself completely naked from the waist down and lying on some kind of cold metallic table. A bright surgical light bathes the table in white, but it fades almost immediately beyond to total pitch darkness. He can feel a warm sticky trickle down the bridge of his nose and glances upward to see a long cylindrical pipe extending into his forehead right between his eyes above his eyebrows. All of a sudden he hears words in his head from a voice that sounds inhumanly thick and electronic. "Cease this investigation and ignore the cries of the basement wall if you value your life, Ghostbuster. We are watching you." Everything again fades to white.

Scott finds himself fully clothed, standing in the campground, holding his meters. Panic drops him to his seat, and he sits still glancing around quickly. Alex is nowhere in sight. The terrified investigator breathes heavily and strenuously, trying to control his panic. All of a sudden another white light lands on his figure. It belongs to a cheap flashlight held by Phil. "I just watched this huge amber light move across the tree line and shoot straight up into the sky! You had to have seen it because it started almost over here. By the way, where's Alex?"

Scott just ignores his colleague and attempts to catch his breath. After a few moments he asks, "What time do you have?"

Phil considers this odd request for a second and responds, "Same time you should have, 11:15." Scott looks quickly at his wristwatch and discovers that it registers the same time, thankfully. Surprised slightly at his co-worker's defeated posture he asks, "What happened to you?"

Scott raises his head and glares at Phil. "I was just abducted."

"Whaaaaaaa?"

"That light you saw… I saw it too, and it paralyzed me completely… and I swear, I SWEAR, where Alex had been standing a few seconds prior, was what we would call an extraterrestrial biological entity. This thing forced me to gaze into its eyes, and then I woke up in this dark room laying naked on a table underneath a surgical light with a pipe drilling into my forehead. Then a voice warned me – us – to cease this investigation, and that it was watching us. Then I found myself back here. Are there any marks on my forehead?"

Phil shines his flashlight over Scott's brow. "All I can see is a red hand print, like someone smacked you on your forehead. And I was just a few yards away the whole time. I'm pretty sure you didn't go anywhere."

Scott starts calling out for Alex and glancing around waiting for a response that does not come. "This is gonna' look bad on us and our business. We can't just lose a client like that, and out here in the woods? The authorities will think we murdered Alex, and so will his brother. I'd better call him."

"They left you a number?" asked Phil curiously. "Oh, by the way I found something odd on a plant leaf over here…"

Scott is completely ignoring his partner and seems to be consumed with reaching their other client. He waits for two dial tones before a male voice responds, "hello?"

"This is Scott from Ghostbusters, are you Jonathan Sector?"

"Yes. What are you calling me for?"

"I have bad news about your brother, Alex. He was showing-"

"Look, I don't know how you learned my dead brother's name or how you got this number, but you two-bit frauds aren't funny. Fuck off!" Dial tone abruptly replaces the angry male voice. Shock forces the cell phone right out of Scott's hand and the small device falls to the ground.

"I got a sample of it to study," Phil turns to find his partner pale and still. "Are you feeling okay?"

"Phil, don't tell me what you found right now. I don't think I could deal with it. I just got off the phone with Jonathan. Guess what? His brother is long dead and he has no idea who we are. I think we were conned."

"Well no reason to stay out here," states Phil. "I scanned with my PKE meter after I saw the light vanish, and it registered nothing. But it was beeping like it was gonna' explode during the appearance of the amber light. I don't think there's anything here right now."

"Let's just go home," replies Scott, exhausted. "We can analyze that sample you found tomorrow."

The car ride back to the firehouse was strangely quiet. Phil would glance over at his buddy every couple seconds to find him blankly staring out the passenger window. Scott did not say anything to Phil the rest of the evening.


	4. Chapter 4

Ch. 4

That night, Scott lay awake in bed trying to sleep with his mind on overdrive. Continual tossing and turning could not bring blessed sleep to his tired brain. Just as well. He'd probably have nightmares. The young paranormal investigator had seen enough strange phenomena in the few months on the job to provide the average mind never-ending fuel for nightmares. He couldn't drive the awful memory from his mind. He could still feel the cold bite of the operating table, displaying him, naked and exposed, to the surrounding darkness. He could still remember vividly the long cylinder and the brain-splitting pain that accompanied it as well as the unnerving warmth of the fluid on his forehead. Remember that bitterness of violation. And what made it worse was that he had no way to explain what happened without sounding completely crazy. Woven among these memories was an overriding fear that gave birth to extreme paranoia.

Scott had read the stories… there were tales of so-called aliens being able to come right through walls and locked doors. And they can take you from your bed with the other people under your roof unaware. It was a probability that the Sector case had been a hoax staged by whatever was out there and, he suspected, had been the source of distress for the talking wall. And "whatever" knew of the Ghostbusters and obviously considered them some kind of threat to plan such a warning. "Whatever" could be watching the Ghostbusters as they sleep for all he knew. Worse still, none of their equipment picked up on the hoax. Only the PKE meter had registered anything unusual, and according to Phil the little device had not gone crazy until the appearance of the otherworldly light.

The Ghostbusters couldn't just turn away or give up on future clients and their awful visitations and encounters. To do so would mean bad publicity and diminished or destroyed credibility. It had to be the more difficult road… and figuring out some kind of protection from this unknown menace. _How do you beat an enemy that can see the entire battlefield while you can see only a small section? _

…

The next morning, Scott climbs out of bed rather late. Dark blotches underneath his eyes indicate that sleep evaded the Ghostbuster all night long.

"You don't look good," says Phil.

"I don't?" replies Scott.

"You've looked better. You didn't used look like this," observes Phil. "What's bugging you?"

"Yeah, I didn't sleep well. Just a lot on my mind," shrugs Scott, trying to brush off his friend's concern.

"Wouldn't have anything to do with last night's strange case, would it? How often do we get a UFO waiting for us almost on cue?" beams Phil, "even if we were tricked."

Scott turns to face his cohort. "Doesn't it bother you just a _little_ bit that they knew enough about us to know we'd bite at the opportunity to go investigate this thing? I mean they didn't even mention payment. It's like they knew we'd jump at the chance to walk headlong into potential danger. When they came in, did you leave them alone for any length of time?"

"Yes, I left the brothers alone in the TV room a couple minutes to use the bathroom," remembers Phil.

"Well then, we ought to comb the room for bugs or other such listening devices. If it gives off any sort of radiation it can be detected with the Geiger counter."

"Don't you think you're being just a little paranoid about this whole thing?" reasons Phil.

"Not at all. This would make me feel a little better and at least let me relax," sighs Scott. Phil shrugs and grabs a second Geiger counter from the small tech lab adjacent to their sleeping quarters. "You trace the main floor. I'll search around up here." Scott begins in the television room, running the meter across every section of floor, every table, every nook and cranny in the long room. When he scans over the entertainment center near the television his meter begins clicking to indicate nearby radiation. It quickly pinpoints the source but appears to be nothing there. Then out of nowhere a mechanized whine invades the silence of the room. Light bends around over some sort of long thin object. Scott grabs at the light bend and takes hold of something hidden. It feels long, thin, and metallic. At one end is something that feels like a rotund gemstone. As he runs his hand down its long thin body his fingers slide over three parallel sets of protrusions very much like insect legs. While Scott studies this invisible thing intently, the whine gradually increases in pitch and tone until it hits crescendo. Then the thing snaps like a firecracker, singeing Scott's fingers and causing him to drop it. All that appears to remain is just a little bit of smoke and the smell of burning electrical wires. "Phil," Scott bellows out loud. "You'll never believe what I found in our TV room."

Scott finishes combing the entire level and finds two more of the little things, each disappearing in the same manner as the others. Phil finds two of them as well, one inside Ecto-A and the other behind the reception desk.

"It isn't paranoia if they really are out to get you," cautions Scott to Phil. "We need to come up with a few ideas to keep under the radar." The larger Ghostbuster nods in agreement. "You-know-who would be able to help us." Scott then dashes up the staircase to the computer room adjacent to the tech lab on the second floor. "By the way, what's today's work load," bellows the smaller Ghostbuster.

"Two more free-repeaters, one at a convenience store, the other at a run-down mall in Kalama, Washington," shouts Phil rather flatly.

"There's a place in that mall that sells good cookies," comments Scott. A few minutes later he slides down the fire pole, and the two paranormal exterminators go to work. Both jobs prove to be much more difficult than they should be, as the ghosts display considerable resistance to their proton guns. In fact, they only capture one of the two ghosts: they corner it over to the ghost trap and trap it without beam containment. Ecto-A pulls into the garage in the late afternoon and both Ghostbusters trudge out of the vehicle, frustrated but not particularly tired. Phil saunters downstairs to load their lone ghost into the containment unit while Scott stomps upstairs to check e-mail on the tech lab computer. He discovers an interesting reply from Dr. Egon Spengler of the New York office:

_I'm pleased your franchise is turning a profit and keeping the Northwest safe from paranormal terrors. Your e-mail message arrived earlier today and prompted me to research UFO sightings in your region. There have been plenty of documented cases, including the article published in the June 9__th__, 1950, edition of the local paper "The News Register" about the photographs by a farming family over McMinnville. However, this office has never been called to deal with UFOs or aliens. Therefore, we have only theories over the effectiveness of our equipment on alien humanoids or supposed extraterrestrial spacecrafts. _

_Dr. Stantz is working on a theory that extraterrestrial spacecraft operate by manipulating gravity and magnetism, hence the reason they are reported to travel the sky in such strange motions. Perhaps a positively charged particle beam could disrupt the manipulation, effectively scrambling the craft's gravitational dynamics and causing it to ricochet out of control. But we could not begin to guess the necessary power level needed to accomplish this task, let alone the necessary power level to contain such a craft. Dr. Stantz also theorizes that a negatively charged beam such as an electron or positron beam would be equally effective in disrupting the flight schematics of an extraterrestrial craft._

_As for the effect of a proton beam on extraterrestrial humanoids, that is an even greater mystery to us. However, in your message you had mentioned the trouble you have had with cases lately, and tied the appearance of the latest ectoplasmic entities to several sightings of extraterrestrial craft, which may indicate that the ghosts are somehow connected to the sightings. Therefore I can only deduce that extraterrestrial humanoids, if of the same essence as these ghosts, would display great resistance to your proton guns. Thanks to research and development, soon you can expect to receive information about other tools to compliment your existing equipment. _

_In any case a security system is a good idea… let me send you the schematics of a design loosely based upon the laser light system we use for cases in jewelry stores and pottery shops. It consists of modifying a number of ghost traps and functions like a standard laser security system. _

_Please keep us informed of your findings, and any new equipment concepts. It sounds like you guys could use another teammate. Someone more inclined to the technical side of this business than you and Phil. _

_Egon Spengler, PhD_

"Bad news, Phil. The New York office doesn't have any answers for us on this one, except the designs for an office security system and a recommendation to find a third teammate who knows more about physics and technology than either of us," bellows Scott downstairs. "We're pretty much on our own for the UFO investigations."

Phil marches upstairs toward the bunkrooms, unzipping his jumpsuit on the way and almost ignoring Scott. "Tell me later. Right now, I'm looking forward to my date with Sarah. We're seeing The Haunted play their gig tonight. You sure you don't want to come along?"

"Not really. I'm not a big fan of theirs and I've seen them before anyway. Plus, Pat's coming tomorrow and I have to plan out some interview questions for him. Have a good time."

"Are you sure you'll be fine by yourself here? That encounter you had in the woods the other night is still bothering you."

"You can tell?" asked Scott.

"I can tell," confirmed Phil.

"Well, if things get to me too much, I can always go to a movie at Fox Tower or go skate at Oaks Park," replies Scott. "I hope I'll be okay."


End file.
